so my first time playing any of these games. I bought it for the graphics and concept seemed cool.. but I cant help think WTF am I doing playing this. I don't mean to discourage anyone from this who likes it. I guess I'm looking for a reason if I should keep playing.. here are my beefs

1. Map is huge. I spend more time walking around and doing nothing.

2. when I do find a dungeon or mission (only did first couple main story) it's a bunch of walking in dark tunnels with a couple skeletons or wizards that's not very challenging. mini puzzles that aren't anything wow.

3. combat is underwhelming. strike right hand strike left hand. shout. cast power then wait for a day to use power again ( I just don't use it anymore, im nord so its warcry)

4. constantly in the menu switching what I'm holding in my right hand and left hand. or to heal during battle slowing combat and gameplay dramatically.

5.. lighting mods (half reason I wanted to play it looked awesome on youtube) ends up I couldn't see ♥♥♥♥ inside caves anymore

6. switching the controls on my xbox controller doesn't change the game button prompts to match your new key bindings (if I change x to a, menus will still say x making it difficult to navigate and do things)

7. had to climb a mountain and damn couldn't find a path. what a pain in the ♥♥♥, it felt like I had to glitch my way to the top

8. storytelling and voiceovers are gay. not interest and no idea what the hell they are saying. the lingo is gibberish to me about this man that race that village,

9. everyone knows ♥♥♥♥ all. tell me to talk to this guy and that guy but I can never find the damn guy.

something keep me going back to discover more, but is this what I should expect if I continue playing? to walk around maybe battling a guy or two, picking up junk, with no flow and horrible combat mechanics?

sorry ipeer, I didn't give story a chance it's more the voiceovers that aggravate me. the story parts a heard I said gay because I don't know what the hell anyone is talking about. I feel like I needed to play a previous title to understand. unlike other games which cater to noobs.

don't take it personal. as I said I'm not here to discourage anyone who like it as they are MY beefs with the game.

I guess part of me things that as I progress things will get more chaotic and hyped?

This is an open world RPG. You should be exploring instead of doing nothing.

Originalmente postado por ForzaItalia458:

2. when I do find a dungeon or mission (only did first couple main story) it's a bunch of walking in dark tunnels with a couple skeletons or wizards that's not very challenging. mini puzzles that aren't anything wow.

3. combat is underwhelming. strike right hand strike left hand. shout. cast power then wait for a day to use power again ( I just don't use it anymore, im nord so its warcry)

Seems to me you were expecting an adventure game or FPS or something. The combat controls have always been very simple in Bethesda games. Frankly I prefer it because I do not have the superhuman coordination and reflexes necessary for some other games. Neither do I have the choreographic skills to do MMO raids. Just being able to hit the monster with your sword is like a breath of fresh air to me.

Originalmente postado por ForzaItalia458:

4. constantly in the menu switching what I'm holding in my right hand and left hand. or to heal during battle slowing combat and gameplay dramatically.

You should be using hotkeys. You can find items and spells to keys 1-8 and use those. But yeah, you will spend some time in the inventory finding potions and whatnot. That's standard in ANY roleplaying game I've ever played.

Originalmente postado por ForzaItalia458:

5.. lighting mods (half reason I wanted to play it looked awesome on youtube) ends up I couldn't see ♥♥♥♥ inside caves anymore

I don't use any lighting mods, so I couldn't say. Try a different one, or just use the vanilla. Some of the ENB stuff looks cool for screenshots, but I think it would drive me nuts after a while actually playing with it on all the time.

Originalmente postado por ForzaItalia458:

6. switching the controls on my xbox controller doesn't change the game button prompts to match your new key bindings (if I change x to a, menus will still say x making it difficult to navigate and do things)

Known issue. Similar problems on the PC. No game in perfect (Bethesda is notorious for being less than perfect. If you were on the PC you could at least get a mod to fix it.

Originalmente postado por ForzaItalia458:

7. had to climb a mountain and damn couldn't find a path. what a pain in the ♥♥♥, it felt like I had to glitch my way to the top

Perhaps you should have looked for the path. If the slope is too steep, then perhaps you should find another way around. Seriously.

Originalmente postado por ForzaItalia458:

8. storytelling and voiceovers are gay. not interest and no idea what the hell they are saying. the lingo is gibberish to me about this man that race that village,

This is 2013. You are no longer allowed to use "gay" as a pejorative. Grow up.

As for the lingo, it's perfectly ordinary English. Unless you goofed and accidentally got the German version.

Originalmente postado por ForzaItalia458:

9. everyone knows ♥♥♥♥ all. tell me to talk to this guy and that guy but I can never find the damn guy.

How odd. The number one complaint from players of the earlier TES games is that it's too EASY to find the damned guy. We give you a map, we give you quest markers, we give you big arrows, and you STILL can't find the guy?

1. Thats one of the best parts of the game, now interact with stuff while exploring.

2. Use a darker dungeon's mod so everything is pitch black, its harder to navigate and you have to plan ahead. I liked the Bleak Falls Barrow symbol and hand puzzle but its reused so isnt really unique.

3. Again, try some mods which speed up combat and require you to use more tactics. Ive played other games like Dragon age etc and nothing beats Skyrim imo.

4. Learn to favorite you noob, thats why they put it in the game.

5. Well this screws my suggestion at #2, most lighting mods have modules so you can pick which sections you want darker etc.

6. Ive only changed the sneak button before but had no problems with using the pad.

7. I climbed up the throat of the world the first time, look around for paths.. use a map mod which marks out roads for you.

8. Learn more about the lore of the game, ethier by researching for playing the game more. I would prefer more in depth dialogue options than voice acting but its improved by miles over Oblivion.

I feel like I needed to play a previous title to understand. unlike other games which cater to noobs.

Nope, from your complaints I would guess that the earlier games would frustrate you even more.

I'm guessing your problem is that you think Skryim is a different game that what it actually is. It's not a first person shooter, it's not an adventure game, it's not a classic linear RPG. It's a freeform open world roleplaying game. There's lots of stuff in the game to help you out, like quest markers if you get lost and don't know where "the damn guy" is. There are captions you can turn on if you have "no idea what they are saying". There are people you can talk to who will give you quests if you have no idea what the hell you are supposed to be doing.

So I been playing still. The game kind of grew on me. And I figure out how to toggle the mission on the map so it will show up fixing my issue of not know what to do (although GPS isn't perfect). Combat I seem to find amusing now, especially fighting town guards. I do wish they had a way to alternate different swings and fast cast spells without going into the menu to switch constantly between a couple.

BUT I totally ♥♥♥♥ed up my game with mods. I tried following RealVision ENB along with the recommended mods, well ITS TOTALLY MESSED UP NOW. Get screen tearing with textures even with Vsync. And now I REALLY CAN'T SEE, especially at night its pitch black :(. and deleting the .ini files that I replace mine with now screws up the save that was using it. I should of just left it Vanilla :(

I might have to start over, only lvl 10 right now but damn that seemed like a lot time invested in the game.

You might want to try THE IMAGINATOR Mod which gives you complete control of color, tint, saturation etcs as well as some predefined settings if you dont want to mess with things right away. It only comes with a BSA and ESP file so no messing with DLLs etc and easy to remove if you dont like it. I have also noticed a increase in framerates.

I can relate to a certain degree on some of your complaints. Reminded me alot of when I first played MORROWIND way back in 2002. I realised it was a different beast from TES 2 DAGGERFALL but like all Elder Scrolls rpgs its about exploration. Exploring the lands discovering the wildlife and plantlife which open opportunities for alchemy and crafting, exploring the npcs with all their beauty and flaws, exploring the dungeons and finding monsters to kill and loot to plunder.

I used to play at Adept level now I have the difficulty slider set to expert and combat is much more challenging and satisfying with the threat of dying more present in hostile encounters.

Then again maybe SKYRIM isnt your cup of tea and perhaps an rpg with more of a combat focus like FALLOUT 3, GRIM DAWN or TORCHLIGHT 1+2 might be more to your liking.

1. Map is huge. I spend more time walking around and doing nothing.It’s not as big as some of the MMO’s I’ve played, but perhaps it’s large for a single player game.

If it bothers you though there are a couple of solutions.

Get a horse, it makes travel much faster. In fact, I was very lucky as I found a horse quite early in the game, it was standing near a dead bandit and I was able to sneak up on it and catch it. So, since then I’ve been able to travel quite quickly and explored large area’s of the map before I was even level 5.

Fast Travel: Skyrim has a fast travel option, which is even more flexible that most MMO systems. You can pretty much fast travel to anywhere where you have already been before.

2. when I do find a dungeon or mission (only did first couple main story) it's a bunch of walking in dark tunnels with a couple skeletons or wizards that's not very challenging. mini puzzles that aren't anything wow.I suspect that depends what difficulty level you are using, mine is set pretty low so, yes they are pretty easy mobs to kill. Try upping the difficulty and see if that makes it more challenging for you.

3. combat is underwhelming. strike right hand strike left hand. shout. cast power then wait for a day to use power again ( I just don't use it anymore, im nord so its warcry)I can’t really argue with that. Having played Tera I find most combat systems in other games underwhelming. However, it might be worth looking at some of the combat mods and see if any of those beef things up a bit.

4. constantly in the menu switching what I'm holding in my right hand and left hand. or to heal during battle slowing combat and gameplay dramatically.Yeah! Again SkyUI helps no end with that, as does the favourites and grouping system.I actually have all my basic combat load outs programmed to hot keys, so I can switch between them instantly. You can have up to eight different load out.

5. lighting mods (half reason I wanted to play it looked awesome on youtube) ends up I couldn't see ♥♥♥♥ inside caves anymore.Um! You didn’t think to carry a torch?

Again, I was quite lucky in that I watched a few modding video’s and discovered a mod called Travel Lantern. This gives your character a lantern with the hook so he can hang it from his belt and it provides a small radius of light ahead of him.

It really doesn't make much sense to load a realistic lighting mod and then complain because the lighting is realistic.

6. switching the controls on my xbox controller doesn't change the game button prompts to match your new key bindings (if I change x to a, menus will still say x making it difficult to navigate and do things)Can’t comment on that as I use a mouse and keyboard.

7. had to climb a mountain and damn couldn't find a path. what a pain in the ♥♥♥, it felt like I had to glitch my way to the top.Why did you have to climb a mountain?

If it was a quest then I can pretty much guarantee there was a path, you just didn’t find it, and if it was just for the hell of it then [shrug].

One easy solution to this problem is to find the Clairvoyance spell and use that to direct you to the correct path. It literally leaves a blue smokey path on the landscape directing you in the right direction to get to the quest location you are interested in.

Funnily, enough I was watching a Lets Play Video a couple of days ago and this gut was trying to climb up to Bleak Falls Barrow, and I was in stitches watching this guy trying to climb sheer rack faces to get there when there was a perfectly clear path to the summit. The problem was that he was running around like a headless chicken and had completely failed to read the quest instructions or even visit all the NPC’s so he was actually approach the quest location from completely the wrong direction. Even so, he managed to run past the path twice before he finally twigged that a line of stones indicated a path up the mountain.

8. storytelling and voiceovers are gay. not interest and no idea what the hell they are saying. the lingo is gibberish to me about this man that race that village,Hmm! I’m not sure what your comparing this game too. I’ve certainly heard better, but I’ve also heard a hell of a lot worse.

9. everyone knows ♥♥♥♥ all. tell me to talk to this guy and that guy but I can never find the damn guy.Ok! Well something is wrong then because if you use the quest markers the location of the NPC’s you need to talk to are marked on the map, and flagged on the game screen by little black arrows over their heads.

It sounds more like you're trying to convince yourself not to play the game, so to continue this thread is trying to convince us that we might be wrong too? Obviously you don't seem to be enjoying the game. Either give the game a chance or move onto another game.

I just wanted to add onto the lighting mod topic--like P-Didz was sayin', those mods are DESIGNED to be played with a torch in one hand, a magic light, or a latern mod. I don't know how many caves and windowless buildings you've been in, but Skyrim is FULL of them, and there shouldn't be any of this magical ambient light that bleaches the otherwise gorgeous envionments. Walls don't just exude light.

Yes the writing and characters is terrible. That's Bethesda's par for the course. Their games are about the world and exploration of it. Fortunately, mods like Realistic Needs (Hunger/Thirst/Sleep) and Frostfall (Hypothermia) turn just a mountain stroll into wilderness survival (as it should be).

The bigger gripe should be why are Bethesda games unplayable without mods by anyone who expects challenge, intensity, interesting characters and a plot that doesn't let you wander away from it for weeks or months with no consequence.

I just wanted to add onto the lighting mod topic--like P-Didz was sayin', those mods are DESIGNED to be played with a torch in one hand, a magic light, or a latern mod. I don't know how many caves and windowless buildings you've been in, but Skyrim is FULL of them, and there shouldn't be any of this magical ambient light that bleaches the otherwise gorgeous envionments. Walls don't just exude light.

I remember I had a salutory lesson about mod consequences soon after I'd installed my first set of immersion mods.

My character was in The Sleeping Giant and was dealing with a thirst brought about by Imps More Complex Needs, unfortunately I'd forgot about the effects of drinking too much alcohol. I'm not even sure if that is part of the vanilla game or part of the same mod.

But anyway by the time I'd satisfied my characters demand for hydration, the room was really fuzzy, and it was hard to see to walk straight. (I've learned to carry a lot of water since.)

Anyway Garik left the Tavern to make his way home and it was pitch dark. He hadn't got his travel lantern on him. and he was living in Riverwood Cottage (another mod) which is reached by a narrow bridge over the White River, and the combinaiton of it being dark and his blurred vision resulted in me missing the bridge threshold and running him into the river.

Which might not have been a problem except that I had the Better Swiming mod installed, and Garik can't swim very well. Plus I had hypothermia installed which meant his stamina took a quick hit too.

Damn near drowned him. i just managed to scramble him up the bank near the main town bridge, and decided to walk him the long way round.